{"id":42838,"date":"2018-03-14T13:07:12","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T20:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=42838"},"modified":"2018-03-14T13:07:12","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T20:07:12","slug":"what-the-national-school-walkout-says-about-schools-and-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/what-the-national-school-walkout-says-about-schools-and-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"What the National school walkout says about schools and free speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Thousands of high school students across the nation\u00a0left their classes<\/a>March 14 precisely at 10 a.m. for 17 minutes.<\/p>\n

The walkout served two purposes: to honor the\u00a017 people<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 including\u00a014 students<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 killed exactly one month ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and to call for stronger\u00a0gun control laws<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Organized by a\u00a0Women\u2019s March<\/a>\u00a0unit called Youth Empower and promoted on Twitter with the hashtags\u00a0#Enough<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0#NationalSchoolWalkout<\/a>, students throughout the country\u00a0took to the streets and gathered at various places<\/a>\u00a0to call attention to the problem of gun violence in schools and in their communities.<\/p>\n

Some schools<\/a>\u00a0are\u00a0threatening to punish<\/a>\u00a0these young activists. But\u00a0others<\/a>are trying to work with them. As\u00a0one article<\/a>\u00a0put it, \u201cThe response from school districts has been mixed, with some threatening to suspend students and others promising to incorporate the walkout into a civics lesson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enter the First Amendment<\/strong><\/h4>\n

From my standpoint as director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University of Florida, all of this raises important questions about the scope of\u00a0First Amendment<\/a>\u00a0speech rights for high school students. Are the students who exit their classes immune from punishment?<\/p>\n

A starting point for answering this question is to understand that the First Amendment only protects against government censorship, not censorship by private entities. Thus, only public school students have First Amendment speech rights. Private school students do not.<\/p>\n

California is an exception to this rule. It has a\u00a0statute<\/a>\u00a0known as the\u00a0Leonard Law<\/a>\u00a0that extends First Amendment speech rights to students at private nonreligious high schools. No other state has such a statute.<\/p>\n

From black armbands to student walkouts<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The second point is that the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in 1969 in a case called\u00a0Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District<\/a>\u00a0that public high school students do have First Amendment speech rights while on campus. Those rights are limited, however. Specifically, the right of free speech ends when there are facts that might reasonably lead \u201cschool authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Tinker, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of\u00a0several students<\/a>\u00a0who wore black armbands to their schools to protest the war in Vietnam and to support a\u00a0truce over the winter holidays<\/a>. There was simply no evidence that the passive expression of a political viewpoint on a sleeve might substantially and materially disrupt educational activities.<\/p>\n

Like Tinker, the student walkouts today are a form of political expression and, in particular, dissenting political expression because the students object to current gun laws. Such speech lies at the heart of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

As Justice Anthony Kennedy\u00a0wrote for the court<\/a>\u00a0in a nonstudent speech case in 2010, \u201cSpeech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people.\u201d He added that \u201cpolitical speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it, whether by design or inadvertence.\u201d With today\u2019s walkouts, students want to hold lawmakers accountable for what they view as lax gun control laws.<\/p>\n

Not immune from punishment<\/strong><\/h4>\n

School officials who punish students for walking out of class today have the right to do so as long as they are enforcing regular attendance policies in a consistent manner. They could also argue that leaving class for 17 minutes amounts to a substantial and material disruption of educational activities, per the rule from Tinker.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, missing 17 minutes out of a school day and, in turn, an entire school year seems neither substantially nor materially disruptive. Punishing students for a brief but important moment of political activism may be sending the wrong message about freedom of speech in a democratic society.<\/p>\n

Many universities<\/a>\u00a0have said they will not hold it against applicants who are punished due to today\u2019s walkout. As\u00a0Richard H. Shaw<\/a>, dean of undergraduate admission and financial aid at Stanford University,\u00a0stated<\/a>, \u201cGiven the nature of this national tragedy and the true and heartfelt response of students in expressing their perspectives and expectations, the University will not consider the choice of students to participate in protests as a factor in the review of present or future candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n

The price of civil disobedience<\/strong><\/h4>\n

So the choice to walk out and face possible punishment ultimately is left to the students. Sometimes that choice may be worth it. As\u00a0Frank LoMonte<\/a>, director of the\u00a0Brechner Center for Freedom of Information<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Florida recently\u00a0put it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effectiveness of \u2018civil disobedience\u2019 has always depended on a willingness to throw yourself in the way, whether that is sitting-in at a lunch counter or occupying the university president\u2019s office. But that also means accepting that disciplinary or even legal consequences may result.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bottom line is that the First Amendment does not give public high school students a right to walk out of classes. It does, however, give administrators a critical justification for shielding them from punishment and to take advantage of a teachable moment about the importance of political protest in the United States.<\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong> Clay Calvert is the Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication at the University of Florida<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of high school students across the nation\u00a0left their classesMarch 14 precisely at 10 a.m. for 17 minutes. The walkout served two purposes: to honor the\u00a017 people\u00a0\u2013 including\u00a014 students\u00a0\u2013 killed exactly one month ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and to call for stronger\u00a0gun control laws. Organized by a\u00a0Women\u2019s March\u00a0unit called […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":42839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[185089],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-42838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-change","tag-gun-reform"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat the National school walkout says about schools and free speech - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/what-the-national-school-walkout-says-about-schools-and-free-speech\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What the National school walkout says about schools and free speech - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Thousands of high school students across the nation\u00a0left their classesMarch 14 precisely at 10 a.m. for 17 minutes. 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